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We’re pleased to announce the list of vExperts for 2013. Each of these vExperts have demonstrated significant contributions to the community and a willingness to share their expertise with others. We are blown away by the passion and knowledge in this group, a group that is responsible for much of the virtualization evangelism that is taking place in the world — both publicly in books, blogs, online forums, and VMUGs; and privately inside customers and VMware partners. Congratulations to you all!

We have named 581 vExperts, which is the largest group yet in the 5-year history of the program. For many, this is the first year they’ve been a vExpert, yet they’ve been working with virtualization and VMware products for years. We’ve also seen a large group come in from emerging markets and non-English-speaking regions of the world.

I want to personally thank everyone who applied and point out that a “vExpert” is not a technical certification or even a general measure of VMware expertise. The judges selected people who were particularly engaged with their community and who had developed a substantial personal platform of influence in those communities. There were a lot of very smart, very accomplished people, even VCDXs, that weren’t named as vExpert this year. We’ll be reaching out to you to discuss the program and ways to successfully increase your community involvement.

If you feel like you were not selected in error, that’s entirely possible. The judges may have overlooked or misinterpreted what you wrote in your application. In addition, we used the sophisticated Big Data Platform called Microsoft Excel for much of our analysis, and there was some cutting and pasting, so we could have introduced discrepancies. Email us at vexpert@vmware.com and we can discuss your situation.

If you were selected as a vExpert 2013, we’ll be conducting the on-boarding throughout this week, so hold tight and expect future communication from us soon. You must successfully be enrolled in our private vExpert community to be listed in the vExpert directory and to be alerted to opportunities like the beta programs and complimentary licenses that we offer to vExperts.

Congratulations to all the vExperts, new and returning. We’re looking forward to working with you this year.

John Troyer, Corey Romero,
and the VMware Social Media & Community Team

This year will be the 10th yearly VMworld event. (Have you registered for VMworld yet?) In the run up to the event, we’ll be running some features talking about the previous nine years of what I like to think of as the World’s Best (And Most Intense) Technology Conference.

Photo: Peter Tsai/Dell

One of the best parts of VMworld is the deep set of breakout sessions. Deeply knowledgable VMware employees, partners, and customers share their experiences in hundreds of sessions over the week. Some of us go to many sessions; some of us wait until afterwards, but the week is always filled with deep technical conversations during every waking hour. Although the conference is now very large and securely based in San Francisco, even in earlier years the conference team shared with us that it was hard to find locations to hold VMworld US and Europe because, unlike other events, we needed a venue with dozens of large breakout rooms!

So here’s the question – what’s been your favorite session or lab at VMworld over the years? Have any stuck in your head years later? And what makes it stand out in your mind? Was it the speaker, the new idea, or even the funny running commentary from your neighbor? Or was it how you had just the right answer when you got back to work and your boss thought you were a psychic genius? Or were you watching the right video presentation at the right time after the event? You can share stories about waiting in line or not getting the sessions you want, but those tend to be less fun.

Leave your story here in the comments and watch out for our series ont the VMworld Blog recapping the history of VMworld and getting ready for this 10th Annual VMworld 2013 in San Francisco where we will, once again, “Defy Convention.”

At Interop in Vegas? VMware has brought out a great team and a full set of breakout sessions, keynotes, and demos. Want to find out more about Network Virtualization and VMware Hybrid Cloud? You’ve come to right place.

In this session, one or more vendors will answer questions about their perspective of SDN. This includes why they think SDN is important, what they see as the primary benefits of SDN, what they see as the technical and organizational impediments to broad adoption and what they see as the short-term future of SDN.

Businesses have an ever-growing need to respond to market forces almost immediately. IT organizations implement private clouds, while users procure resources from public cloud vendors. Mathew will help you solve infrastructure bifurcation by bridging the benefits of a Software-defined Datacenter with on-demand access to a secure public cloud to build your hybrid cloud of choice.

There are two trends leading to the next transformation of the datacenter – First, the proliferation of virtualization across datacenter hardware and software is modernizing the datacenter. Second, changing business needs are demanding faster response from IT. These trends are leading to a new approach – the software-defined datacenter – where all IT infrastructure services are virtualized and delivered as a service, and the control of this datacenter is entirely driven by software. But how do you go from virtualization to full achieving a software-defined datacenter? What are the necessary steps organizations need to take to realize this transformation? What does the journey look like? What are the operational challenges and roadblocks, and the major decisions that business will need to make? What are the right investments and when is the right time?

Looking for a public cloud computing provider? You have many questions to consider. First, does the provider offer the services you need to support the solution? Second, what’s the cost of using that provider over time? Third, can you get the right level of security and governance from your provider? Finally, will the provider stay up-and-running, and in business over the long haul.

In this panel, we’ll leverage top experts in the world of cloud computing to provide practical and sound advice around the process of evaluating and selecting a public cloud computing provider. This includes understanding your own requirements, searching out the right public cloud computing provider, and evaluating that provider before making the final selection.

Most IT organizations are already using server virtualization, and most are or will soon start down the road to private/hybrid cloud and the delivery of IT-as-a-Service. Although this journey can seem complicated and overwhelming, it is a path now well-traveled by a growing number of organizations. This session will discuss real world lessons gathered over the past few years to illustrate the journey, pitfalls and success criteria for making the transition from virtualization to the cloud.

Virtualization has clear benefits for enterprises along with widespread adoption. But what about small-to-medium businesses? Do those benefits apply? How are the solutions the same/different for SMBs? Are the steps to virtualization and private cloud the same/different? Should SMBs do it themselves or should they look to service providers to take over? How does virtualization relate to private/ public/hybrid cloud and how should SMBs view the journey?

Hybrid cloud sprawl is making life challenging for IT admins. Different environments, different functionalities and capabilities, different interfaces. Kit will discuss how the next generation of management tools will abstract over differences in heterogeneous environments to allow for a consistent approach to private, public, and hybrid cloud management.

Manage the mobile device? Mobile apps? Mobile data? What about mobile expense management and policy specification and management? While mobility is now essential to organizational success, the solutions required are anything but standardized. This session will examine and debate alternative solutions and discuss how to integrate mobility with the remainder of IT management overall.

Workers today want choice – the ability to use their own tablet, smartphone, laptop… to access corporate applications and desktops remotely, search the Web without restriction and download data using any device. A few years ago, this was considered the exception but today, it is essential if companies want to attract the best and brightest in their industry. But how do you support this brave new world, and balance security and control of corporate assets vs. end-user demand choice and a changing workplace culture? Building and managing the right infrastructure for today and tomorrow may seem daunting and fraught with challenges so how do you know if your organization is ready? This session will explore key considerations to ponder when planning your workspace strategy for desktops, applications, cloud and BYOD.

VMware Booth

We’ve got an awesome booth with a full range of demos, short theater presentations and giveaways. Stop by Booth #1551 and say hi. Demo stations include:

Theater Schedule

vSphere with Operations Management – Maximizing the Value of Virtualizaiton

7:00pm

VMware Horizon Suite

Wednesday, May 8

11:00am

vSphere with Operations Management – Maximizing the Value of Virtualizaiton

11:30am

IT Resiliency with VMware – Better than Physical

12:00pm

The VMware Cloud Evaluation

12:30pm

1:00pm

VMware Horizon Suite

1:30pm

Cloud Management for the SDDC

2:00pm

vSphere with Operations Management – Maximizing the Value of Virtualizaiton

2:30pm

3:00pm

Cloud Management for the SDDC

3:30pm

4:00pm

The VMware Cloud Evaluation

4:30pm

5:00pm

VMware Horizon Suite

5:30pm

Thursday, May 9

11:00am

vSphere with Operations Management – Maximizing the Value of Virtualizaiton

11:30am

Cloud Management for the SDDC

12:00pm

The VMware Cloud Evaluation

12:30pm

IT Resiliency with VMware – Better than Physical

1:00pm

VMware Horizon Suite

1:30pm

2:00pm

vSphere with Operations Management – Maximizing the Value of Virtualizaiton

2:30pm

3:00pm

Cloud Management for the SDDC

3:30pm

IT Resiliency with VMware – Better than Physical

4:00pm

The VMware Cloud Evaluation

4:30pm

5:00pm

VMware Horizon Suite

5:30pm

Community & Social Media Activities

Wednesday, May 8, 10 pm until:Tech Field Day’s Buzzword Bingo Bash! What could be more fun that coming out to apply all the terms you’ve used and abused during the week? Another event organized by the community, this is a crossover event for everybody attending either EMC World or Interop. Come on out and meet your fellow geeks who have been working on the other side of the Strip!

As you can see, it’s going to be a full week! Follow the #Interop hashtag for everything from everybody, @Interop for show news, @VMwareEvents for these VMware-related events, and connect with me at @jtroyer to say hi!

At EMC World 2013 this week? There will be plenty of VMware-oriented content about virtualization and cloud all across the show, but here are the sessions, booth theater schedule, and other events that the VMware team will be involved with.

General Session

CIOs today are looking to data center and cloud innovations for new ways to deliver more value to their people and organizations through on-demand access to any application on any device. The Software-Defined Data Center expands the virtues of server virtualization to the entire data center—compute, networking, storage and management—providing a foundation for IT in the Mobile/Cloud era. By delivering infrastructure for cloud services to all devices, this new platform offers the path to IT-as-a-Service—providing efficiency, control and agility, without sacrificing choice. Please join Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, as he arms you with perspective on your role in this multi-year journey and outlines VMware’s technology strategy to radically simplify IT in this new era.

VMware Booth

You can find us at Booth #201 with a full set of informative activities. This year we’ll be offering a full Hands-On Lab experience with access to the full VMware labs, hosted in the cloud, that are available at VMworld and VMUGs around the world. A 13-seat theater with presenters from VMware and its partners give you insight into a variety of topics (schedule below). And demo stations at the booth include:

Evening Community Activities

Monday, May 6, 9:30-11:30 pm:Geek Whisperers Out Loud. Not an official event, but join Matthew Brender (EMC), Amy Lewis (Cisco), and me, John Troyer (VMware) for an informal non-sponsored Tweetup (BYOWallet). We podcast as The Geek Whisperers, a show about all things Social Media in Enterprise IT. Social is a part of all of our careers these days, and we’d love to hear what it means to you. Come out and say hi.

Tuesday, May 7, 8:00-10:00 pm: EMC Community Network Appreciation Event. If you’re a member of ECN, or if you’ve ever used this great community site to solve a problem, come on by the Zebra Lounge in the Palazzo.

Wednesday, May 8, 10 pm until:Tech Field Day’s Buzzword Bingo Bash! What could be more fun that coming out to apply all the terms you’ve used and abused during the week? Another event organized by the community, this is a crossover event for everybody attending either EMC World or Interop. Come on out and meet your fellow geeks who have been working on the other side of the Strip!

As you can see, it’s going to be a full week! Follow the #EMCWorld hashtag for everything from everybody, @EMCWorld for show news, @VMwareEvents for these VMware-related events, and connect with me at @jtroyer to say hi!

We’re extending the vExpert 2013 application deadline to from tonight to April 22, 2013 at midnight PDT. More information on the vExpert Program is available at the original announcement: vExpert 2013 applications are now open.

We’d like to encourage first-time applicants to go ahead and put in an application. It just takes a few minutes to apply.

If you’re passionate about virtualization, cloud, and building the new software-defined data center, you’ve probably shown it in some way just by doing your job with passion. For some of us, that’s building out a blog to record our observations on a current project. For others, it’s speaking at a VMUG, leading a certification study group, or working with VMware as a reference customer. We want people in the vExpert Program who have given back to your colleagues and the community — however you do it. You don’t have to be a book author, you don’t have to be a famous speaker, and you don’t even have to be the smartest person you know. The vExpert Program is a great experience for the participants. Our job is to help you succeed in your career and to help you continue to contribute to the community.

If you know someone who you think should apply — someone who has contributed their expertise to others, who would enjoy hanging out with the most passionate pros in IT, and who we’d like to hang out with too! — then please use this vExpert Recommendation Form to reach out to them and encourage them to apply this year.

This deadline extension is not related to today’s terrible tragedy in Boston, but our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected.

[Update: the deadline for applications has been extended to April 22, 2013 midnight PDT.]

Applications are now open for the vExpert 2013 Program. The deadline for application is April 15, 2013update: April 22, 2013 at midnight PDT.

Each year, we bring together in the vExpert Program the people who have made some of the most important contributions to the VMware community. These are the bloggers, book authors, VMUG leaders, speakers, tool builders, community leaders and general enthusiasts. They work as IT admins and architects for VMware customers, they act as trusted advisors and implementors for VMware partners or as independent consultants, and some work for VMware itself. All of them have the passion and enthusiasm for technology and applying technology to solve problems. They have contributed to the success of us all by sharing their knowledge and expertise over their days, nights, and weekends. They are, quite frankly, the most interesting and talented group of people I’ve ever been in a room with.

vExperts who participate in the program have access to private betas, free licenses, early access briefings, exclusive events, free access to VMworld conference materials online, and other opportunities to interact with VMware product teams. They also get access to a private community and networking opportunities.

As with last year, there are three paths to being designated a vExpert. Each path takes into account the accomplishments and activities over the last year. You must apply to indicate your interest in the program.You do not need to be nominated by someone else, but in some situations a VMware employee reference is recommended. This year we don’t have a “nomination” form, but we are offering a form with which you can “recommend” that someone else apply. Some VMware programs will also be sending emails to recommend that you apply.

Evangelist Path
The Evangelist Path includes book authors, bloggers, tool builders, public speakers, VMTN contributors, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others with the leverage of a personal public platform to reach many people. Employees of VMware can also apply via the Evangelist path. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public or were in a language other than English.

Customer Path
The Customer Path is for leaders from VMware customer organizations. They have been internal champions in their organizations, or worked with VMware to build success stories, act as customer references, given public interviews, spoken at conferences, or were VMUG leaders. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public.

VPN (VMware Partner Network) Path
The VPN Path is for employees of our partner companies who lead with passion and by example, who are committed to continuous learning through accreditations and certifications and to making their technical knowledge and expertise available to many. This can take shape of event participation, video, IP generation, as well as public speaking engagements. A VMware employee reference is required for VPN Path candidates.

For the last several years, the community has gotten together at VMworld and thrown themselves a party. The party is Unofficial, because it really isn’t an official part of VMworld itself, but it’s Official, because we, the Communities & Social Media Team of VMware, anoint it as our primary community gathering. And the invites are spread via Twitter, so we call it a Tweetup. Thus, the “Unofficial Official VMworld Community Tweetup.”

Last night we gathered once again to socialize, reconnect, and decompress after a hard day keeping up with our VMworld schedules. New this year was a FlipCup tournament, which evidently is some new-fangled drinking game that the kids are enjoying. [Note! Alcohol was not mandatory for our version of FlipCup! We wanted people to be able to make it to the Tuesday morning keynote!]

Teams from across the IT spectrum gathered at the Cable Car City Bar, the trash talk flew, and good fun was had by all. Check out the action in our gallery below. Congratulations to the winning team of VMware Interns! All that time at college paid off!

VMware obviously works with a lot of partners. Channel partners drive much of our business, and they range from two guys in a garage to the largest systems integrators, resellers, and OEMs on the planet.

I’m working on a project with VMware’s channel partner team to figure out how we can help our partners get up to speed on social media marketing. Given that social media is an extremely broad topic, and that we’re talking about everybody from Two Guys, Inc. to IBM, I don’t think we can put some pdfs together and call it a completed project.

So as a first start, we’re working on gathering goals and requirements within VMware and in our partner community, and also on assembling a set of Social Media Marketing 101 tools. I think there will be both general social media material that will be relevant, as well as some resources tuned specifically for IT consulting and VARs.

To start us off, I asked for recommendations on Twitter today about this, and these are some of what my network on Twitter suggested:

But I don’t think the conversation stops here! Put your two cents into the comments: what tools, books, links, blog posts should we be looking at as we try to help our resellers and channel partners better utilize social media to connect with customers and bring people along the journey to the cloud?

Just a quick note on the vExpert Program Notifications. Originally I had given us two weeks to go through all 1000-odd nominations and applications. This was too aggressive given travel and other commitments. I'm resetting the clock on this for another two weeks to make sure we don't leave anybody out. Sorry for any inconvenience or upset stomachs. Again, I'm completely blown away and humbled by your efforts and accomplishments. Leaving the specifics of VMware's situation aside, I can't think of another industry where people are so eager to teach and help each other out than our own IT industry. I know we talk a lot about "journeys" and New Ways To Work and 10-year paradigm shifts in how IT departments will be run; but given what I'm reading in these vExpert applications, I am very optimistic that we will all get wherever we're going just fine.

So that you don't walk away empty handed this weekend, I'd like to leave you with a few words of wisdom from the Most Interesting Man in the World.

Our podcast topic this week on the VMware Community Roundtable (#139) was Virtualizing Business Critical Applications on vSphere. Our guests were two of VMware’s Technical Solutions Architects. Alex Fontana specializes in Microsoft Exchange, and Wanda He in Microsoft SQL Server. Both also contribute to the relatively new blog, Business Critical Applications. As usual, you can listen to the podcast via the widget on the right, via the mp3, or via iTunes.

Alex is a co-author of the book Virtualizing Microsoft Tier 1 Applications with VMware vSphere 4 with Charles Windom and Hemant Gaidhani. Charles and Hemant were both on Podcast #107 last August. Since Charles was nice enough to give me a copy of the book, I would like to pay it forward by sending it to one of you via a contest here. In the comments to this post, tell your story about virtualizing a business critical application. You don’t have to make it a long story, and you don’t even have to identify your workplace. Just lay out an interesting detail, funny incident, something you hadn’t anticipated, or best of all, how well everything went. Be sure and put your real email in the comment (it won’t show up on the page, but I’ll need to contact you.) I will take all the entries on the comment form – one entry per person – by next Wednesday’s podcast and we’ll pick a random entry to send the book to.

Thanks and good luck!

John

p.s. We’re live every week at noon CA time. You can join us live on our podcast platform Talkshoe every week and join in the chat and ask questions. Please come by — we have a good time! Next week I’ll be doing the podcast live in New York at the VMware Forum. To follow all the latest virtualization podcasts, whether you listen to them at your desk or on your commute, come over the VMTN Communities Podcast Group and see the latest content!